published September 24, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
powerpc/irq: Fix missing r2 clobber in PCREL inline assembly
In CONFIG_PPC_KERNEL_PCREL mode, r2 is no longer reserved for the TOC
pointer and is available as a caller-saved register [0].
Both call_do_irq() and call_do_softirq() use inline assembly to call
functions with stack switching, but fail to list r2 in their clobber
lists. This causes the compiler to assume r2 is preserved across these
calls, leading to register corruption when the called functions
(__do_irq and __do_softirq) clobber r2.
As a result of this kernel crash during interrupt handling is seen and
the kernel fails to boot:
BUG: Unable to handle kernel data access on write at 0xc000000404697638
Faulting instruction address: 0xc0000000000181ec
Oops: Kernel access of bad area, sig: 11 [#1]
NIP [c0000000000181ec] __do_IRQ+0x6c/0xc0
With older GCC, the compiler would conservatively allocate
callee-saved registers (like r31) for values spanning function calls,
accidentally avoiding the bug:
<__do_IRQ>:
00 00 00 60 nop
a6 02 08 7c mflr r0
f8 ff e1 fb std r31,-8(r1)
f0 ff c1 fb std r30,-16(r1)
2d 03 10 06 pla r31,53297316
...
3d e8 ff 4b bl c0000000000165ac <__do_irq>
00 00 21 e8 ld r1,0(r1)
28 00 4d e9 ld r10,40(r13)
40 00 21 38 addi r1,r1,64
2a f9 aa 7f stdx r29,r10,r31
With newer GCC 14, the compiler uses r2 for such values, exposing the
missing clobber specification:
<__do_IRQ>:
00 00 00 60 nop
a6 02 08 7c mflr r0
f0 ff c1 fb std r30,-16(r1)
f8 ff e1 fb std r31,-8(r1)
29 02 10 06 pla r2,36252592 # c0000000022aadc0 <__irq_regs>
...
85 dc ff 4b bl c000000000015ee0 <__do_irq>
00 00 21 e8 ld r1,0(r1)
28 00 2d e9 ld r9,40(r13)
30 00 21 38 addi r1,r1,48
2a 11 c9 7f stdx r30,r9,r2
Fix this by adding r2 to the clobber list for both call_do_irq() and
call_do_softirq() when CONFIG_PPC_KERNEL_PCREL is enabled.
[0]: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg313226.html